10
May 2012
Well, the newest issue of Crimespree Magazine (#46) was recently released. So we thought it would be a great time to giveaway the last issue! It will be available for FREE until May 14. Get yours today at the following link: Crimespree Magazine #45 Jan/Feb
Don’t forget to post a review!
24
Apr 2012
Kinney Fahey has been on the job for six months. He’s not focusing his efforts on the paperwork and it’s gonna bite him…real bad. ROAD GIG is a tight, well-written 19,000 word novella by a great new voice in crime fiction.
A short story called BLOOD EVIDENCE, which is a Barefield story, along with an afterword by Trey is included.
As a final bonus, sample chapters from THE DEVIL AND THE DIVA by David Housewright and Renee Valois, BLACKHEART HIGHWAY (the 4th Wil Hardesty mystery) by Richard Barre and CZECHMATE: THE SPY WHO PLAYED JAZZ by Bill Moody are included.
BE A CHARACTER CONTEST
Have you ever wanted to be a character in a book? How about a Trey R. Barker book? Now’s your chance. Between now and May 31, 2012 when you purchase a copy of ROAD GIG, you can receive an entry to the contest. Read the book and find the code word can get you another entry. Post a review on Amazon or B&N and you get two more entries. That’s four chances in total! Three lucky winners will be randomly chosen by Trey. Want more details, buy ROAD GIG today!
17
Apr 2012
Pamela Samuels Young is an award-winning author of five novels and a contributor to Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes. Pamela is the latest to share some of her thoughts on crime fiction in this Quick Hit series.
Down & Out: How did you start writing? What do you remember as your earliest inspiration?
Samuels Young: I’ve always been an avid reader. Although I majored in journalism in college and worked as a television news writer for several years, I never thought about writing a novel. After finishing law school, I developed a passion for reading mysteries, particularly legal thrillers. It began to bug me, however, that I never saw women or people of color depicted as hot shot attorneys in the legal thrillers I read. I would close the books feeling satisfied with the story, but disappointed about the lack of diversity in the cast of characters. One day, I decided that I would write the kind of legal thriller that I wanted to read. With five legal thrillers behind me, I can definitely say I discovered my passion.
D&O: What is it about Scoundrels that piqued your interest? Or, how did Gary Phillips convince you to contribute a story?
Samuels Young: As soon as I heard about Scoundrels, I loved the concept for the book. Bad actors make great characters. That’s reinforced with every book I write. The early draft of my legal thriller Buying Time had only a few lines from my protagonist’s obnoxious father-in-law, who was a bit of a scoundrel in his own way. After my test readers kept commenting on how much they enjoyed his despicable antics, I decided to give him a larger role in the book. People enjoy characters they love to hate.
D&O: Do you think readers will respond differently to stories firmly rooted in white collar crime? How does this collection differ from standard crime fiction fare?
Samuels Young: The public outcry over financial scandals like the Enron scam and the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, as well as the popularity of TV shows like American Greed demonstrate that white collar crime hits a very personal cord with people. I think it’s because most of these bad actors had great lives before they launched into a life of crime. Their greed makes us shake our heads because we can’t understand how someone with so much could want even more and feel no shame about destroying the lives of others as they went about their fraud and deceit. Personally, I feel that write collar criminals are just as pathological and heartless as murderers and rapists. They just wear suits.
You can visit Pamela Samuels Young online here.
The Scoundrels ebook is currently available for the KINDLE
You can also buy this as a trade paperback from AMAZON
16
Apr 2012
CARE FOR A DOCK TALE?
Here it is: my official declaration that “The Devil and the Diva” is the season’s first “dock book,” perfect for reading on a lazy day at the lake, on the cool porch or in a leafy back yard.
“The Devil and the Diva” by David Housewright and Renee Valois (Down & Out Books, $17.95 paperback, $4.99 e-book): Fans of Housewright’s award-winning crime series featuring Holland Taylor and, separately, Rushmore McKenzie, will see his lighter side in this pop-culture-meets-”Phantom-of-the-Opera” story written with his wife, who occasionally reviews theater for the Pioneer Press. The book is also Housewright’s first plunge into electronic self-publishing.
The “Diva” of the story is singer Clarisse Dufresne, whose voice sounds just like that of famous pop diva Sheila Lewis. When Lewis dies, Clarisse is snatched from the street by a masked man who whisks her to his Summit Avenue mansion. The mysterious man, Maurice, says he’s holding Clarisse a prisoner to protect her from bad guys who want her to participate in a fraud using her voice to release records that supposedly were made by Lewis before she died. The bad men come, and Clarisse has to fight her way to freedom while falling in love with Maurice.
Down & Out Books, which published “The Devil and the Diva,” specializes in self-published noir e-books. But it obviously wanted this novel to get wide circulation, because it’s the first to be published simultaneously in a print edition.
“This is quite a departure from my usual thing,” Housewright admits, adding that at one time, he was “dead-set against” e-books and self-publishing. But like other established Minnesota writers, such as R.D. Zimmerman, he changed his mind.
“Renee wrote this book while she was in college, and I added some chase scenes and a few jokes,” Housewright says. “We call it a ‘gothic suspense romantic thriller crime novel,’ which explains why we had a hard time finding a legacy publisher. It has gun battles, sword fights, dungeons, secret passageways, ghosts, smoky jazz joints, ancient ex-Nazis longing for the good old days, Viet Cong guerrillas turned entrepreneurs, voodoo-practicing Haitians, crime lords and, yes, sex.”
For information, go to createspace or independent bookstores for the print edition; http://downandoutbooks.com/ for the e-book.
Book critic Mary Ann Grossmann can be reached at mgrossmann@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5574.
You can find the entire article here.
16
Apr 2012
Crimespree #46′s cover feature is none other than Brad Parks. He is interviewed by Jon Jordan. Ayo Onatade talks with Belinda Bauer who won the CWA Gold Dagger in 2010. Scott Montgomery writes about the great Milton T. Burton. Keith Thomson explains how to construct a beer can bazooka (complete with pictures!) and Richard Barre talks about the eRevolution and him.
Short fiction in this issue is provided by William T. Hathaway and Seamus Scanlon.
Reed Farrel Coleman–The Evil Empire part 1; Craig McDonald–Messing with Memory; Amy Alessio–Teen Trends. Chelsea Cain introduces the 5 books and albums that changed her life while Zoe Sharp talks about her books in behind the books. All this and so much more.
And no, we didn’t forget the DVD Reviews, Buzz Bin, Book Reviews and Comics.
11
Apr 2012
Blackheart Highway
By Richard Barre
With The Innocents, Bearing Secrets and The Ghosts of Morning, Richard Barre has emerged as “one of the best hard-boiled detective novelists of the ‘90s” (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review). Now, with Blackheart Highway, he takes the genre for the ride of its life.
Southern California P.I. Wil Hardesty is a man whose search for the truth always seems to draw him back into his own troubled past, a past shadowed by loss. Doc Whitney was a country music star whose career had just gone platinum when he was convicted for the brutal slayings of his wife and young daughters.
Now twenty years later, their paths collide when Doc is paroled from prison and returns to California’s hot, dusty Central Valley…where grudges die hard and the road leads to places best left unexplored.
In a town divided over Doc’s release, two people with very different agendas recruit Wil. Once wants the elusive Doc gone permanently. The other is convinced he’s innocent and wants him cleared.
Through a maze of secrets and lies that threaten crash-and-burn with each passing moment, through switchback of twisted loyalties and grim betrayal, Wil must reconstruct a life, discover the real Doc Whitney, track down a killer. And, of course, survive…
REVIEWS:
“Shamus-winner Barre evokes the ever-present past as a melancholy backdrop against which Hardesty works his lone-wolf magic. An excellent series.” —Booklist
“Wil Hardesty is a private eye whose destination may just be the pantheon of great ones who followed tough clues before him.” –Michael Connelly
“Haunting, compelling and beautifully written. Richard Barre touches the soul. He is simply one of the best.” —Harlan Coben
“Barre swings for the fences once more with this sprawling, convoluted blast from the past” —Kirkus Reviews
“Explodes into our senses in a perfect balance of action, suspense and emotion. The sheer beauty and strength of Barre’s writing gives Blackheart Highway a glow of redemption that’s extremely rare in any kind of fiction.” —Chicago Tribune
“The legitimate heir to Ross Macdonald…the dark poet king of California mysteries.” —Chicago Tribune
“Creating an enigmatic, taciturn character that has enough dimensions to cast a shadow over a novel is no easy task. Barre handles that admirably. Makes you wish the book had been packaged with a soundtrack CD.” —Los Angeles Times
“Barre’s plot is complexly woven…the tensions and layered plot…will keep you reading and guessing.” —Santa Barbara News Press
“Reading like a country song, Blackheart Highway is a story of tragedy and redemption…an insightful, moving read.” —Romantic Times
“Hang on tight—Barre keeps the pedal to the metal all the way. This one’s a winner. Save yourself a second trip to the bookstore and pick up the other books in the excellent Wil Hardesty series now.” —Jan Burke, author of Disturbance
“Spare, economical tight writing. This is an outstanding novel without a wasted word. Plots and subplots intertwine with spiraling tension to a very high level. This one is a grabber you’ll want to read in a single setting.” —The Mystery Zone
“Not a wasted word. Blackheart Highway is a stunning accomplishment.” —Ed’s Internet Book Review
BUY IT TODAY:
7
Apr 2012
The newest book from Bill Moody is now available for purchase as a Trade Paperback and all eBook formats. Following is a brief synopsis:
The year is 1968. The liberal reforms of Czechoslovakia’s new leader, Alexander Dubcek, have outraged the Kremlin and now, 250,000 Warsaw Pact forces are amassed on the borders.
For American intelligence, the situation is worsened when their prime source, Josef Blaha, threatens to cut them off unless one demand is met: a totally safe contact. For CIA veteran, Alan Curtis, jazz musician Gene Williams seems the ideal choice. His invitation to the Prague Jazz festival gives him perfect cover and access to Prague.
But Williams is a musician, not a spy and has other ideas that force Curtis to resort to blackmail to get the young musician to accept what Curtis calls a simple pickup and delivery. It starts to go wrong when Williams finds Blaha murdered by the KGB and he’s left to unravel the puzzle on his own. What he finds is even more than Curtis bargained for. With the help of Blaha’s beautiful granddaughter Lena, Williams races against time to warn Dubcek of the impending invasion and uncover a traitor in the US Embassy.
Mary Stanton, author and editor, says “Bill Moody’s atmospheric, jazz-driven novels featuring Evan Horne are right next to Michael Connelly and Don Winslow on my bookshelf. With CZECHMATE, he moves into John LeCarre territory. Like TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, Moody brilliantly explores the dark world of 60’s Cold War Europe. And, like Le Carre, Moody himself has been there.”
Here is a PDF of the first three chapters so you can give it a spin.
If you like it, you can order it from your favorite Independent bookstore or on-line.
CreateSpace TP | Amazon TP
6
Apr 2012
As many of you know, I was a big fan of Milton’s work. I am proud to say Down & Out Books published his short story collection called Texas Noir. Crimespree Magazine #46 includes a piece written by Scott Montgomery about Milton. It is ‘mighty fine’.
The following is a list of his books and where you may purchase them if so inclined.
1947. An enigmatic man driving a fine Lincoln convertible and accompanied by a beautiful blonde, comes to a small West Texas town. Ostensibly, his purpose is to get into a poker game that had been going at the infamous Weilbach Hotel. But as the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that he has a darker motive, one that centers on a sinister local banker named Clifton Robillard. Aided by an old-time hood named Chicken Little, the protagonist maneuvers Robillard toward a shattering climax in which we discover that nothing is what it seems to be.
With its wildcatting spirit, The Rogues’ Game is a high stakes novel and an exquisite quest for revenge.
Not currently available as an eBook.
Distilled in Texas and the Delta, a straight-no-chaser crime novel set around the legendary Dixie Mafia.
Manfred Eugene “Hog” Webern, a retired Dallas County deputy sheriff, is talked into going undercover in Biloxi, Mississippi, in a multistate effort to nail a group of traveling Southern criminals who have been tagged by the press with the lurid name “Dixie Mafia.” After making contact with the gang’s nominal leader, the notorious Jasper Sparks, Webern begins to worm his way into the group’s confidence. He also meets and becomes involved with an old friend of Sparks, the mysterious Nell Bigelow, a former assistant federal prosecutor whose daddy “owns half the Delta.”
Having gained the gang’s trust, Webern soon learns that the score being planned is the massive robbery of a wintering carnival of an entire year’s receipts. Joining in planning the job, he meets such well-known hijackers as Slops Moline, a Charleston, South Carolina, killer and armed robber; Lardass Collins, the country’s premier car thief; Tom-Tom Reed, one of the world’s most skilled safecrackers; and the infamous Raymond “Hardhead” Weller, an Alabama-born moonshiner who has pulled off more than two dozen high-profile contract killings in his seventy years.
As the story develops, Webern is drawn into a maelstrom of robbery, mayhem, and senseless violence that threatens to engulf his very being. And before the final curtain falls on The Sweet and the Dead, we learn that in the murky world of Southern professional crime, nothing is ever quite what it seems to be.
Small town, meet big crime.
It’s not hard for longtime Sheriff Bo Handel to keep Texas’ Caddo County in line. He handles petty crimes and rabble rousers, runs a competent police force and maintains a relationship with his steady girlfriend while keeping things quiet.
But when the local minister’s wife, Amanda Twiller, is murdered and dumped on the church’s front, Bo suddenly finds himself with his hands full. Unfortunately for Bo, finding Amanda’s killer won’t be as easy as rounding up the town’s usual suspects. He’ll have to get past sleazy attorneys and drug lords first. When he discovers that Amanda was not only addicted to narcotics but also having an affair with one of the roughest men in town, the lazy days of his past are a distant memory.
Soon, Bo realizes there are only so many cocaine kings and Mob bosses that one man can juggle. But the murderer is out there, and it’s up to Bo to find out who it is. This small town sheriff is used to a light workload. So what happens when heavy crime comes to town?
A rip-roaring mystery set in 1940s Texas, featuring a Texas Ranger and the New Orleans Mafia.
December, 1942. Texas Ranger Virgil Tucker receives a plea for protection from Madeline Kimbell, a terrified young woman who witnessed a crime. Keeping Madeline safe from the men who want to hurt her turns out to be harder than he imagined. When a prominent attorney is murdered, Virgil is drawn into the dangerous world of the New Orleans Mafia as the top mob bosses try to take over alveston’s gambling empire. Chockfull of Southern charm, this book is perfect for fans of historical mysteries and for anyone who loves Texas.
Milton T. Burton, acclaimed author of The Rogue’s Game, The Sweet and the Dead and most recently Nights of the Red Moon, has pulled together 17 short stories in a collection called Texas Noir. He starts with a hay baler in A Good Beginning, we’re introduced to Sam MacCord in a couple of stories and Bo Handel makes an appearance. Milton tries his hand at, of all things, a vampire tale and nails it. Wild Bill Throckett gets hanged, not once but three times! He ends this round with a simple e-mail exchange between a hit man and his lover’s husband.
23
Mar 2012
To round out our Quick Hit series this week, Down & Out tapped Gary Phillips—editor of the just-released Scoundrels and author of numerous comics and novels, including the Ivan Monk and Martha Chainey Series—to answer some of our most burning Friday afternoon questions.
Down & Out: Why are readers so drawn to crime?
Phillips: Assuming you mean crime fiction, ahem, I think two reasons. One main reason is vicarious sense of being the tough guy or gal character. The one who is able to take the semi-auto shotgun from the trunk of the ’68 Nova, walk into the vitamin store that’s a front for the fake designer jeans operation in the back, and smack that bad boy upside the head of the fool who tried to short you on the last job. Direct and to the point. Not worried about the light bill or matching the paint when redoing the hallway.
D&O: How do you see the short story as different from the novel? How are they different to write? To read?
Phillips: The short story is so much about the set up and payoff happening in a relatively short length of time. Pacing is important. Not saying it has to be bang, bang, bang but the structure is spare and there’s little time for diversions, yet it can’t be so stripped down that the characters and situation isn’t engaging the reader. Even more than in the novel, can your short story have that twist, that sudden quick turn at the end that the reader didn’t see coming? Or at least does the story play out in a way that’s different, fresh.
D&O: How has the housing market collapse and subsequent recession effected you as a writer? Did it impact your contribution to this collection?
Phillips: How do you not reflect on an event that precipitated the Great Recession we’re in now? Hearing stories of hard-working people who, as Clinton remarked, played by the rules and got the short end, not because of some hoodoo vagaries of the invisible hand of Adam Smith but in too many instances because there’s some smoothie in a $3,000 suit who, aided by a computer algorithm, traded away your life savings playing at the margin to get their two percent bump.
Jon Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey testified to Congress late last year about MF Global — and who can make up that name? — an investment entity he ran. He simply didn’t know where the $1.2 billion they had fiduciary responsibility for from their investors — not all of them high rollers many regular folks — went. Or just recently we’ve had the revelation from an insider that the sharpies at Goldman Sachs referred to clients as Muppets — chumps and sucker in other words.
Yeah, those sensibilities did shape my story, “Eight Ballers,” in Scoundrels.
You can visit Gary Phillips online here.
The Scoundrels ebook is currently available for the KINDLE, and will be released in other ebook formats in coming weeks.
You can also buy this as a trade paperback from AMAZON OR you can ask for it from your favorite Indie Bookstore…they can get it for you.
22
Mar 2012
Next up in our quick hit series is Kelli Stanley, author of the Miranda Corbie series. Stanley’s story “Survivor” can be found in Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes, and was excerpted earlier this week over at the Criminal Element.
Down & Out: What inspired you to write the story you contributed to Scoundrels?
Stanley: I wanted to write a very dark story but one that verges on the baroque—one of y inspirations was Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. The plot was inspired by the horrendous pain caused by unbridled and unregulated greed—not just in this country, but globally. Corporations, in contradiction to a statement by one of the current presidential candidates, are not people. They exist solely to make a profit for their stockholders or owners. Banks are corporations. We cannot expect these soulless, amoral entities to somehow rise above what they are designed to do in the interest of morality or ethics… and just how immoral they can become has been amply demonstrated, time and again, in the late 19th century, the Great Depression, and today.
That’s why we need laws—and bank and securities regulations.
D&O: What does your physical writing process look like? Do you need complete privacy? Write in short bursts? Have a specific CD you always play?
Stanley: I need privacy in order to enter the world I write about—that means no talking, no phone calls. One of my hats is a beat-up old brown Champ fedora, and that signals (to me and my household) that I’m incommunicado. I write at home, though I have written and can write in a crowd. I write in short bursts out of necessity rather than choice, since I also have a day job. I do listen to music… each of my books has a soundtrack that accompanies it: these are songs Miranda hears in the course of the novel.
D&O: Why crime fiction? What makes reading—and writing—crime fiction so compelling?
Stanley: Crime fiction wrestles with the most frightening, bleak and ultimately harrowing experiences a person can go through … and yet usually presents a justice, of sorts, by the conclusion of the plot. We would like to believe this happens in real life; it helps soothe our sense of outrage, our sense of victimization. Crime fiction empowers its readers to believe in karma, to have faith, to vicariously experience a resolution to the slings and arrows, both major and minor, that we suffer.
Crime fiction, in essence, is life… and literature with a plot.
You can visit Kelli Stanley online here.
The Scoundrels ebook is currently available for the KINDLE, but will be released in other ebook formats in coming weeks.
You can also buy this as a trade paperback from AMAZON OR you can ask for it from your favorite Indie Bookstore…they can get it for you.
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